#6: Pentecost: The Spirit Poured Out

I. Introduction
A. I think we all have a sense in life that we need help. Well, over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about the Helper Jesus sent, that is, the Holy Spirit.
B. The last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about the story of the Holy Spirit (HS).
1. We looked at the ministry of the HS in the OT.
2. Then we looked at the HS’s role in the life and ministry of Jesus.
3. Next week we will begin a number of weeks on the ministry of the HS in our lives today.
C. But today we are going to talk about what we can learn about the ministry of the HS in our lives by the story of His coming at Pentecost?
II. The Pentecost event didn’t begin on the day of Pentecost.
A. It began with OT prophecies (just like with Jesus the story of Jesus). The OT frequently speaks of a day when God would pour out His Spirit upon His people in great measure. The promise was introduced by Isaiah (Isaiah 32:15; 44:2-3), repeated by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:25-28; 37:14; 39:29) and then by Joel (Joel 2:28-29) and Zechariah (Zech.12:10).
B. Then comes John the Baptist.
1. And he was preaching, and saying, "After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." (Mark 1:7-8 – See also Matt.3:11, Luke 3:16; John 1:32-34; Acts1:5.)
2. So, during John’s public ministry, he picks up on the OT promises of God to send the Holy Spirit, he focuses it on Jesus as the One who will do it, and finally he refers to the pouring out of the HS (Acts 2:17-18, 33) as baptism of the HS (Acts 1:4,5,8). (So here baptism means not immersion but pouring out.)
C. But then Jesus comes and the anticipation of this great Holy Spirit event continues to build as He repeatedly points ahead to it in His own words to the disciples...
1. Especially on the last night before His death, at his Last Supper with the Twelve:
a. “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.” (John 14:16)
b. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name... (John 14:26)
c. “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father...” (John 15:26)
d. “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.” (John 16:7,8)
e. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes...” (John 16:13)
2. The same expectation continues to receive attention after the resurrection:
a. “Behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
b. "Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, 'Which,' He said, 'you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now...But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’" (Acts 1:4,5,8)
III. Pentecost: the event
A. Ten days after Jesus said these things and ascended to heaven, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the 120 believers who were in Jerusalem, and all the promises were fulfilled.
B. And as soon as it happens a crowd gathers to see what is happening and Peter gets up to address the crowd and says, “This is what was spoken of through the prophets.” and quotes the prophet Joel.
C. (Now Pentecost was not merely an isolated incident. Three aftershocks followed it in the book of Acts, three mini-Pentecosts, which are relevant to this discussion, and which we will discuss next week. It is as if there is a ripple effect that goes out from Pentecost:
1. In Acts 8 the Spirit comes upon the Samaritans.
2. In Acts 10 He comes upon the Gentiles in Cornelius’s house.
3. And then in Acts 19 it happens to the disciples of John in Ephesus.)
D. Now we see in Acts 2:2-4 that three phenomena occur at this initial out-pouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost:
1. Sound of wind
a. There doesn't seem to have been a wind, only a sound of a wind. Why? The Spirit was the wind (the Greek word pneuma means spirit, wind and breath). The point was that they were given the ability to sense the coming of Something that would otherwise have been imperceptible.
b. Of course, the Holy Spirit is no longer perceptible by our ears, just as He is no longer perceptible by our eyes as He was when He came upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
c. And later in Acts when the HS comes in Samaria and Caesarea and Ephesus, the sound of the wind does not accompany.
2. Tongues of fire
a. The coming of the Spirit was not merely hearable but seeable – in the form of what looked like tongues of fire coming down upon each believer. (Note that the text says not "of fire" but "as of fire.")
b. This probably is related to what John meant when he said that Jesus would baptize with the Spirit and with fire.
c. This also is very probably connected to the glory cloud. It was as if there was a miniature pillar of fire on each person.
d. This phenomenon also did not reoccur at any of the subsequent outpourings.
3. Speaking in tongues
a. Acts 2:4 “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
b. (At least two of the subsequent outpourings included speaking in tongues – Acts 10, 19)
c. It seems that there must be a connection between the tongues of fire in v.3 and the speaking in tongues of v.4 (the Greek word for tongues is the same). It seems that the tongues of fire represent God's tongue (i.e. God’s speech) coming upon them, thus enabling them to speak in tongues/languages they didn’t know, by the power of the Spirit.
d. What is tongues? And what is the relationship between tongues and the ministry of the HS?
(1) We know what prophecy is: it’s when God speaks His word through a prophet/prophetess.
(2) Well, tongues is prophecy miraculously spoken in the languages of the nations.
(3) At Pentecost, God spoke through His people in the languages of those who gathered.
(4) This seems to be what Peter means when he says, “And they shall prophesy.” in Acts 2:18 (this sentence is not from Joel).
e. What is the significance of this? Well, we see here a sign of God beginning to speak to the Gentiles. All of a sudden God is speaking through His people in the languages of the world.
(1) One of the main themes of the NT is God turning away from the Jews in favor of the Gentiles, or from the Jews exclusively to people from every nation, tribe and tongue.
(2) And the speaking in Gentile tongues at Pentecost is a sign of blessing to the Gentiles.
(3) Up until this time, the oracles of God belonged to the Jews and not to the Gentiles (Rm.3:1-2).
f. But it was also a sign of judgment upon the unbelieving Jews — a sign that God was turning away from them.
(1) In Deut.28 God had warned His people that when they turned away and went after idols, He would punish them by sending a foreign nation against them: “The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand.” (Deuteronomy 28:49, see also 32:18-21)
(2) And from this point on, the hearing of strange and unknown languages becomes, for Israel, a sign of God's covenant curse (e.g. Jeremiah 5:15), in anticipation of a day when a foreign army would invade and conquer Israel.
(3) Later, the prophet Isaiah refers back to the warning of Deuteronomy when he predicts God’s judgment on Israel in Is.28:11, “By people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people.”
(4) Well, in 1Corinthians 14:21–22 Paul quotes this very verse (and the last phrase of Is.28:12) to explain what tongues is all about. (And this is the only place in the Bible where tongues is explained.) He says: “In the Law it is written, ‘By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.’ Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.”
(5) So, you see, the tongues at Pentecost were at least partly a sign of God’s judgment on Israel.
(6) Usually it is not recognized that Pentecost was more than just the birth of the NT Church. It was also the beginning of the death of OT Israel.
(7) Pentecost included signs of Israel’s ruin. In crucifying Christ, the Jews had missed their last opportunity to repent. The stone had been rejected and was now on its way back to crush them (Is.28:14-16; 1Pet. 2:6; Rom. 9:33; Eph. 2:20).
(8) At Pentecost, the fire from heaven not only lights up the Church with the presence of the HS, it also lights the fuse of Israel’s destruction, which ultimately will explode in 70AD.
(a) On the one hand, in the tongues of fire producing tongues of foreign nations (Acts 2:3-4), we see a sign of God's blessing upon the Gentiles (see connection between Pentecost and Gentiles in Gal. 3:14). In changing the language that He speaks from Hebrew to Gentile tongues, God is signifying the transfer of the kingdom from the Jews to the Gentiles (Matt. 21:43). Thus, for the Gentiles, the fire of Pentecost is "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Is.42:6; 49:6; Luke 2:32; cf. Is. 9:2) because God is now speaking His revelation to Gentile ears. Paul’s quote of Joel 2, where God says He “will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind” also makes this aspect of Pentecost clear.
(b) On the other hand, the very same Gentile tongues are a sign of God's rejection of Israel. As we have seen, this rejection is culminated in the Roman annihilation of Israel in 70AD. Thus, for the Jews, the Pentecost fire represents a foreshadowing of the burning of Jerusalem by fire in 70AD.
E. When we consider these three phenomenon, we need to ask whether there is an appropriate distinction between the signs of the Spirit’s coming and the fruit of the Spirit’s coming.
1. Many of the OT prophesies about the coming of the HS speak about the difference He makes, how life will change as a result of His coming, how the coming of the HS will cause them to love and obey God’s law.
2. But Joel 2 is different. And we have to ask, when we read Peter’s quote from Joel 2: AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says, ‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; 18 EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT, if it foresees the event of Pentecost and speaks of what will happen that day, or it is referring to a new pattern which is to exist from then on.
3. For 1900 years, there was virtual consensus in the church that the prophecy and the tongues were phenomena related to the coming of the HS, not to His abiding ministry down through the ages.
4. However, the Pentecostal/charismatic movement must be reckoned with. They claim, of course, that visions, prophecies, tongues, etc. are supposed to be a regular part of our experience.
IV. The main points of Pentecost
A. When the story of Pentecost is the only thing you read about the HS, it’s possible to get the impression that tongues and prophecy are central to His coming. But if you read what is said about the coming of the Spirit ahead of time by the prophets and by our Lord Jesus, and if you read what is said about the coming of the Spirit in the NT epistles, you realize this is not at all true.
1. We also see in 1Corinthians 12-14 that there is a temptation to get off track by focusing on the spectacular gifts (like tongues, in particular).
B. So what ARE the central themes of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost?
1. The theme of being moved/carried/empowered by God – not by our might/power/ingenuity, etc.
a. This is not just for the believers who were alive at the time of Pentecost; it is for us. The Holy Spirit is not just something that happened in the Bible. The Holy Spirit is someone who has been given to us. And whether we realize it or not, we relate to God through the Holy Spirit.
b. The point is that we no longer live our lives based on our own preferences or our own strength, or our own agenda. “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal.2:20)
c. The coming of the HS was a big deal. Is it a big deal to us? It came with all the marks of great significance. Does it have great significance to us? Do we attribute great significance to it in our lives?
2. The theme of being empowered to spread the word of God – the theme of outreach/declaration
a. Before the ascension, Jesus, speaking of Pentecost, laid out this agenda: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witness both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
b. On the day of Pentecost, God Himself highlighted this new dynamic of the new covenant by putting His tongue upon each believer (Acts 2:3) and speaking through them.
3. The theme of including the Gentiles
a. Another important transition was the opening up of God's outreach from exclusively Israel to "all mankind" (Acts 2:17, 38-39; 3:25-26, see also Eph. 3:4-6; Gal. 3:14). God, having restricted His old covenant to Israel, now, in the new covenant, pours out His Spirit on all men, Gentiles as well as Jews. This was predicted and foreshadowed repeatedly in the OT (e.g. Is.49:6).
b. This can be seen in God using His people to speak to the crowd in a wide variety of languages.
c. The distinction between Jew and Gentile is abolished in Christ: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:26-28)
4. The theme of universality (every people, tribe and tongue) – closely related to Gentile inclusion
a. Now all people have been brought together as one in the new covenant. God is speaking in everyone's language. (This is why the NT was written in Greek, the universal language, instead of Hebrew, which was the language of the Jews and of the OT.)
b. “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1Cor.12:13)
c. Age and gender distinctions are affected as well (Acts 2:17-18). The HS comes upon all, not just to a select few.
5. The theme of the unity between the Holy Spirit and Jesus
a. After Peter explained what had happened, he went on to preach about Christ. The HS came to point to Jesus, to glorify Jesus. He didn’t come to start something different than Jesus.
b. Rom. 8:9 calls the Holy Spirit, "the Spirit of Christ."
c. 2Cor.3:17 "the Lord is the Spirit" (compare v. 18, and 1Cor. 15:45 along with John 6:63). It is not that these two members of the Trinity have become one member. Rather, it is a reflection of how the ministry and function of the two have become so closely identified with one another.
d. The expression "Christ in you" is used interchangeably with "the Holy Spirit in you." (This could be shown from numerous examples but perhaps the most extraordinary is Rom. 8:9-11.)
e. It is really the coming of Jesus ALONG WITH the coming of the Spirit which produces the power of the New Covenant.
(1) This power is first unleashed at the incarnation when Jesus was "conceived by the Holy Ghost"
(2) It is seen even more fully when the Spirit came upon Jesus at His baptism by John and empowers Him in His ministry and death.
(3) And it reaches its climax once the resurrection has occurred (once again: by the Spirit - Rom. 8:11) and Christ is exalted to the right hand of the Father when He receives the promised Holy Spirit in order to pour Him out at Pentecost (Acts 2:33).
(4) From this point on, the ministry of the exalted Christ seems to become completely identified with the work of the Holy Spirit.
C. The Pentecostal/charismatic movement must be reckoned with. And we have much to learn from them and to realize from their example. In the end, I think we have to say something like this:
1. To the extent that Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity focuses on the spectacular experiences instead of on gospel truth and godly living, to the extent that they base their thinking on their “inner sense of things” or on their experiences instead of upon the word of God, to the extent they give first focus to the gifts of the Spirit and not to the gift of Jesus and His Spirit, to the extent that they distract us from Jesus by focusing on tongues or healing or prophecies, to that extent we have to object.
2. To the extent that it moves us in the direction of greater joy, more exuberant worship, bolder proclamation of the gospel, to the extent that their zeal drives them to love and study God’s word, to the extent that they focus on the fruits of the Spirit even more than the gifts of the Spirit, to that extent we say AMEN, and thank God for the ways we’ve been enriched through them.